


how to paint the sun

by memento_amare



Series: snapshots in time [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Artist Reader, Edo Period, F/M, Fluff and Angst, atsumu is smth like an oiran/kagema, inspired by miss hokusai, sensuality but not nsfw? if that makes sense, set in the red light district
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28253061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memento_amare/pseuds/memento_amare
Summary: you find the sun in a district swathed by red lanterns.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Reader
Series: snapshots in time [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029228
Comments: 9
Kudos: 50





	how to paint the sun

there are things you hear when sitting in the silence.

the black ink curls into your fingers, smudges the sides of your palms, and you sit with the weight of your father’s fame on your shoulders. you tuck yourself into the folds of where the candlelight doesn’t hit, hunched in your _kimono_ , finishing his pieces.

your father’s art is like the sun. he is a man who brings light into his work, making even the ugly beautiful, leaving everything brighter than it once was.

painting is easy: the hands that guide your brush are steady, and even in the dark, your eyes are sharp.

the details are easy. the whole picture is not.

if he is the sun, you are the shadow it leaves behind. 

“she doesn’t paint like you,” the latest client complains, tapping his pipe, cleaning it of ash. “there is no sensuality, no beauty.”

your hand pauses over your own piece — yours, not one of your father’s — the ink dripping onto the thin paper.

he grunts in reply. “of course not. she can’t paint what she doesn’t know.”

-

that night, you grab your wallet and one of your few good _kimono_ — the one with flowers curling at the edges. the summer makes the air sticky, even more so in the heat of this place, with all the lanterns hung on the walls. here, your _kimono_ pattern glows a foreign amber.

you press your money to the hands of the old lady. she looks at you, and there’s no judgement, only a curious curl of her lip. 

“boy or girl?”

“anyone,” you reply. “whoever is your most beautiful.”

the perfume in the air is enough to make anyone lightheaded, but this was your choice. this is the place where you think beauty comes, drawn to the flickering red lights of swaying lanterns like moths to a flame.

a smooth voice rings from the entrance, low and rich. “aren’t ya a pretty thing.” 

you turn, and the woman had delivered.

his clothes are so much finer than yours, face painted like an _oiran_. some of the strands of his blond hair catch the glow of the lantern, and they shine like golden thread. 

“your hair is lovely.” 

“not as lovely as you, dear flower,” he murmurs, voice as heady as the perfume curling around you. you approach him, ignoring the way he looks at you from beneath his long lashes. 

your fingers come off white when you touch his cheek, stark against the ink that constantly stain them. his lips curl up, amused, and he meets your hand, lacing your fingers together and bringing his face closer to yours.

“shall i take off my, clothes, miss?” his other hand begins to shrug his robe off, exposing the curve of his shoulder.

“no.” you stop him. “not yet. what can i call you?”

“yer strange,” he says. he’s still too close for comfort, his breath fanning across your nose. “but my name is atsumu.”

“atsumu,” you breathe, and note the accent that slips out of his tongue. breaking from his gaze, you trace your fingers along his collarbone delicately, imagining the lightness of your brush against the paper, only the very tip of the bristle running across its surface. his shoulder glows golden, in contrast to the paint on his face. 

“may i wash your face?”

the question catches him off-guard, and the heady gaze he’s been leveling on you disappears, replaced by bewilderment. your thumb rubs at his lips, watching the way the paint comes off to reveal the pink underneath.

you repeat your question.

“ya may do with me as ya please,” the low curl of seduction in his voice is gone, but his eyes remain glued to your face. 

there’s a washcloth and tub of water in the corner, more meant for cleaning after the act, but you put it to different use. making him kneel, you rub at atsumu’s forehead and cheeks, down the line of his jaw. the paint is thick, and it takes several tries, but eventually, the face that stares back at you is clean. 

now, you better make out the delicate angle of his cheekbones. his skin is smooth, slightly pink from your ministrations, and his lips are fully revealed, a soft pink. his features are masculine, yet delicately sculpted. _if i am a flower, you are the sun._

you trace over them like you did his shoulders, fingers dancing, painting, _feeling_. you pull off his _haori_ but keep the lower half on. the heat of the room is near-unbearable, and you can feel it in the dampness of his skin, the sweat trickling down your neck.

you shrug off your _kimono_. 

his hands come up to hold you, suavé and ready, a familiar smirk coiling over his face. you catch them, stopping him again. 

he frowns. “why won’t you let me touch you?” 

your eyes flicker to his. you begin to examine his fingers, the pads of which are clean and soft. “that’s not what i’m here for.” 

“why’re ya here, then, miss?” 

“to find beauty.” the light dances across both your bodies, reflecting in your irises. your hands continue to wander, running your hands across his chest, over his ribs and the planes of his stomach. you tilt your head, surveying the faint scars that line them. he catches your hand, the one to stop you this time. you look up.

“what a strange definition you have of beauty.”

someone knocks at the door. your time is up.

“thank you for your help.” you dress yourself back up again, bowing to him. he manages a low laugh, too soft and mellow for a place like this. 

“your name, miss. if i may be so bold.” 

you pause at the door. “my name is y/n.”

-

frustrated, you crumple the latest piece of paper, uncaring of the ink that smudges across it. 

your kimono still smells of that heady perfume from the night district, but unlike your clothes, your fingers struggle to remember the planes of atsumu’s body.

you swore off everything, all the expectations of your sex, abandoning your status in the pursuit of capturing beauty. the results come in the stains on your hands, the papers tossed all about you. they are the permanent fixtures that remind you of the price you paid.

the few good pieces are laid on the far end of the table, waiting to dry. the hold the planes of his chest, the curve of his shoulders, his face with its delicate cheekbones. but not all of him. not yet.

you never manage to get him in his entirety; it’s too much to paint. you wonder when you’ll manage to.

(how does a shadow girl paint the sun? can she only do it in parts?)

-

you find another kimono — less elegant, but still presentable, and make your way to the pleasure district once again.

you stop by a different house each time, always asking for the most beautiful, but never for sex, only art. sometimes you bring ink and parchment, and they curl into poses as you ask (or as they please), and watch you work your brush across the paper in a room heavy with incense.

it isn’t easy; sometimes you give up halfway, and resort to paying them more to make up for their time, or when you’re short on money, offer them the _onigiri_ you have packed with you.

there’s nothing lacking in your technique — it is as your father said: _you cannot paint what you don’t know_. yet the means of acquiring that knowledge eludes you.

it’s always the details, but never the whole picture.

eventually you find yourself before the establishment that started it all.

it’s still noon, and many of the houses are closed, this one included. your habit of coming to this part of town brought this upon yourself.

“come back at night,” the old lady says, but you don’t move from your position.

“please, tell atsumu i am here.” you give the lady your name, saying he’ll know who you are. her eyebrows lift, and she closes the door without another word. you shuffle your weight between your feet, the seconds dragging.

after a while, the door opens again, and it’s him, in plain, regular clothes, but no less beautiful. his blond hair and skin are paler under the sun.

“i didn’t think i’d see ya again, miss. ya’ve made a name for yerself around these parts.” for the first time since he’s met you, your cheeks tinge red. you shuffle your feet again, voice coming out hesitant.

“i’d like to ask you some things, if you wouldn’t mind. over some _sōmen_ , perhaps?” he regards you silently, and you bite your lip, wondering if this was a good idea.

eventually, he shrugs, a smirk pulling at his lips at your discomfort. “you don’ need ta bribe me with food, miss. i’d have said yes regardless.”

-

he did take you as a straightforward person in that first meeting, and indeed you were, if your questions were of any indication.

“painting pretty things should be easy,” you bite your lip, your face contorting in frustration. the drawings laid out on the table crumple into your clenched fists. “it’s always been easy for my father.”

there’s something that’s been bugging atsumu’s mind, something he’s been wanting to say ever since he heard you say that you came here searching for beauty. 

“this district isn’t pretty.” your eyes dart to his, surprised. “we’re pretty people, but work here isn’t pretty.” he doesn’t filter his words; you came to _him_ , after all, and, hell, he’s nothing if not blunt — the paint he wears is just a mask to hide the sharp edges underneath, and the first thing you did was wipe _that_ away.

so he doesn’t regret it, even as your eyes dip from his, fixing on the bowl of cold _sōmen_ on the table.

you think back to the men and women you’ve seen, the delicate curves and edges of their bodies, the pride and sorrow and pain and triumph in their eyes. you remember the scars on his stomach. you wonder if he has more of them — not the ones on his skin, but the kind that runs deeper.

( _you set out to paint the sun, and here is where you fell short,_ he says — the sun is beautiful — but never gentle. never soft.)

“i see. i’m sorry.” the liquid ripples, distorting your features.

-

when you return to the pleasure houses, it’s with a different spiel. anyone may come, and you ask them for their names and their words, offering them company and art in exchange for stories. 

perhaps what you’re doing is foolish — you set out to paint the sun, but the sun is not found in the lanterns, not in the flickering shadows of the pleasure district.

you reason that you can’t paint the sun in parts, but you can start with this, and work your way up from there.

they’re more than happy to share, and it hurts at first to hear. but you let them, let them share as much or as little as they like, be it through their words or the scars on their bodies. and in the end, you draw. they offer you themselves, you reflect it in ink. that is your gift.

and if before you felt nothing more than clinical fascination, that’s not how you feel now. they all become suns in their own right — damaged, pulsing bodies of varying kinds of light.

(you’re wrong — again. the sun is everywhere.)

you move away from your father’s house, managing to purchase a place on a different part of town, near the pleasure district (the houses are cheaper, and you’ll be nearer — it’s a win-win, really). you move out of the shadows of your father, your posture straighter without the weight of his reputation on your shoulders.

let him finish his own pieces. you’re done with pretty things; they are only shells of the truth.

a couple of weeks later, you drag the sun away again, and lay out a different set of pieces from before. you sit still, observing his reaction.

atsumu’s eyes rove over the drawings: the lady across the street with a gaze that doesn’t match her young face, the wobble of another man’s lip, the curve of some random waist. your heart beats erratically in your chest, fluttering, nervous. 

something shifts in his expression — a tiny thing, something you wouldn’t have caught if you hadn’t seen the same thing in all the other faces of this district.

and that tells you perhaps you’re on the right track.

-

once, you deigned to capture pride into a woman’s hip, and triumph in her eyes. when you showed it to her, she cried, taking the parchment from you, tilting it so that her tears don’t smudge the ink. that seems to happen more often now.

now, you don’t pay people to paint them. they pay _you_.

-

more months pass, and you fall into a comfortable rhythm of meeting when time permits it. your new friend — is he a friend? — is many things: childish, blunt, and abrasive, nothing like the smooth and mellow talker from your first meeting. 

he tugs on your sleeve, veering you away from your usual spot. 

“what’re you—”

“let’s eat somewhere else. want ya to meet someone.” 

you stop at a small _izakaya_ , the kanji _miya_ painted on a white paper lantern hanging outside. he goes in with no hesitation. 

when you enter, there’s a second atsumu. you stare. not-atsumu stares back.

“this is osamu. my twin.”

if upon entering you didn’t think it made sense, when you leave, it seems the most natural thing in the world. sun and moon, gold and silver, heads and tails — they mirror each other, complementary opposites.

though it begs the question of how they ended up with such _different_ lives.

you don’t ask him. like with all your clients, you won’t force him to speak. more importantly, he’s your friend. if he chose to reveal osamu in his own time, he’ll choose to tell you why on his own terms as well.

(the sun rises and sets as he pleases, after all.)

that night, you paint two boys, reflections of each other, one gold and one silver. you ink the fire in their eyes and the strength of their bond.

the next morning, it joins the mass of crumpled artworks.

you don’t know enough about them to paint. with atsumu, it’s always the parts, never the whole. with him, you fall back into old habits: details, never the bigger picture.

-

for old time’s sake, you visit him while he’s in his silken robes, in the perfumed rooms that your nose had finally grown accustomed to. though unlike before, he doesn’t bother with the paint.

it’s been a while since you’ve traced the planes of his body on a place that isn’t ink and parchment, and you re-commit them to memory. you remembered the curve of his bicep wrong, along with the sinew of his thighs. but his skin is still smooth and supple, unblemished save for the thin scars on his stomach.

“is this the part where i tell ya my life story, then?” he jokes, watching you roll your eyes.

“i never force anyone. tell me if you want to. i’ll listen.” 

there’s something different now, in the goosebumps on his skin despite the oppressive heat, the gentle coax of your ink-stained fingers as you explore the lines of his body, still clinical yet now somehow _reverent_.

the next words tumble out of his mouth, almost of their own accord. “i don’t know where to start.” 

you blink, not expecting him to actually consider it. absentmindedly, your fingers travel wherever, letting them move as they please. he shivers, and you realize that you were running them over his stomach and the thin white scars on his skin. 

he doesn’t push you away. hesitantly, you press on.

“you can start here,” you whisper, watching the way his eyes flicker with _something_ then close, the way he curls into himself for the briefest of moments.

(perhaps then you didn’t have the courage to come near the sun, but now, you’ve been with him long enough to not be afraid to be burned.)

he thinks about many things: of his past, osamu, of being sold off to this _okiya_ , of half his life ripped away from his other half.

atsumu opens his eyes. you’re still waiting, gaze deceptively neutral, but with a tenderness that pushes him further, toe the edge between light and darkness. the lantern’s light flickers on both your faces.

(and perhaps the sun had grown used to the shadows too.)

“how ‘bout we have a deal.” he reaches out, and you don’t stop him. the thought startles him a little, that you’ve touched him nearly everywhere but he’s barely done the same. or that you’ve stopped him every time he tried, except not today. 

eventually, he decides on tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “you’ve always asked me questions. it’s only right that i ask you as well.”

“but i wouldn’t know where to start, either.”

he’s ready with his answer, and he lifts your ink-stained fingers up to the light.

“then start here.”

-

he’s still getting used to this dynamic; the once inseparability that got ripped apart when poverty prompted separation prompted sorrow. he still carries the scars, right over his core.

but atsumu’s been making progress. both of them have.

(the moment you gave them the piece of the twins, osamu hangs it on the restaurant wall. it’s delicate work, but somehow powerful, two foxes mirroring each other, battered tails just barely intertwined.

he thinks he nearly cried when he first saw it.)

“she’s pretty,” his twin comments, wiping down the counter table. the pleasure district is closed at noon, and it’s only right for him to be his most regular customer. “and talented.”

“… didn’ notice.” 

“ _really?_ just ‘cause yer standin’ around with the prettiest people in town…” osamu clicks his tongue. “whatever. yer a dick, anyway.”

“the _hell?_ ” he cries, betrayed.

“a dick and a liar.” his twin stands there with a mocking grin, so much like his own, and he’s well and truly ready to rip it off his face as the birds chirp outside.

“yer a fuckin’ scrub,” he settles on.

“says the spineless who can’t even confess—“ atsumu lunges.

(“she’s good for you,” osamu also says at one point, but atsumu doesn’t comment on that.)

-

he visits your place today, watching you skitter around a piece, humming and scowling with ink smudges on your cheeks and even one on your chin.

“i dunno about this one…” he sees your eyes cloud over again, the shadows returning a little darker than usual.

“quit bein’ insecure already. i don’ care if ya don’t think these are pretty, because they’re so much more than that.

“they’re truthful,” he finishes. _thank you,_ is what atsumu wishes to say. he hopes you catch it.

(girl of shadows — you’ve become a light in your own way.)

you bite your lip. “i never did get to paint you fully. it’s - it’s like painting the sun.” he chokes. 

he doesn’t quite understand it yet — another one of your esoteric artist mind that he just nods along to but thinks about at night. but hearing you say it is still…

he stares, drinking you in, how the sunset hits your face in all kinds of golden. he thinks of many things, a lot of them nowadays you, the once-detached artist who set out to paint the sun and changed his life along the way — or something. 

you laugh. “sorry. that was weird.” 

all he knows is that you’ve grown into your own skin, though your fingers remain constantly stained with ink. you’re not just _pretty_ , you’ve become so much more than that: sharp and tender and kind, and though you say it hurts to look at him, sometimes he can say the same for you.

(girl of shadows — you’ve painted suns enough times for them to be reflected off your own face.)

he twines your fingers together, uncaring if the ink smudges his clean fingers.

“that’s okay. i’ll wait.”

—–

> _epilogue._

you stand outside the _okiya_ as the sun rises, a large parchment rolled and ink already dried. you’re the only one in the streets.

( _you’re not going to see it until i’m done,_ you had said, and there’s nothing he could do — no amount of begging, seducing, or threatening would change your mind.)

the old lady need not announce your arrival; he’s out the door before you can even knock. he sees the tube you’re holding and understands immediately. but that’s for later. _later_ , because you’re standing with _him_ tucked under your arm, and he’s seen every _oiran_ who asked you to paint them break down and cry and he’s not about to do _that_ in the middle of the street. 

“i know we’re past the whole beautiful thing but…” he curls your ink-stained fingers in his soft ones, lifting it to his lips. his heart hammers in his chest. “i think yer beautiful,” he breathes. 

(he wonders if you think that he had said that to seduce you — the very first time, it probably was. but he called you pretty not now. now, you are beautiful: it is a fact, an admission, a confession.)

you tremble then — he’s still the brightest among these small suns that you have found: not gentle, sometimes painful to look at, but beautiful all the same. it happened in pieces, the skirting between feelings, in the darkness you’d curl yourself into when faced by his light.

perhaps it’s predictable of you to fall for your very first muse, even more so for the shadow girl to love the one that shines the brightest. but you swore your art to be in pursuit of the truth, and here is the truth, finally in it’s entirety, that you can no longer bring yourself to deny.

you lift your gaze to stare at him fully, the sunlight dancing in your eyes. your fingers move down, over on his stomach, running across his scars. “i think you are too.” 

oh. _oh._ blood rushes to his cheeks. there’s no paint to hide it — there never is, with you. he’s out of his usual gaudy robes, no makeup on his face, and you’re here with your heart on your sleeve and your soul brushed in ink for him to see. 

atsumu smiles, breathtakingly beautiful in every sense of the word.

(girl, do you finally understand? there is no one who knows the sun better than the shadows.)


End file.
